Climate change, exacerbated by human behavior, has made 2025 one of the three hottest years on record, scientists say.
In addition, this was the first time that the three-year average temperature exceeded the threshold set in Paris Agreement 2015 limit warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. Experts say keeping the Earth below this limit could save lives and prevent catastrophic environmental destruction all over the world.
The analysis by World Weather Attribution researchers, published Tuesday in Europe, comes after a year when people around the world were slammed dangerous extremes caused by a warming planet.
Temperatures remained high despite the presence of La Niña, the periodic natural cooling of Pacific Ocean waters that influences weather around the world. The researchers cited the continued burning of fossil fuels – oil, gas and coal – which release planet-warming greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
“Unless we stop burning fossil fuels very, very, quickly and very soon, we will have a very difficult time meeting this warming target,” Friederike Otto, co-founder of World Weather Attribution and a climate scientist at Imperial College London, told The Associated Press. “The science is becoming clearer.”
Extreme weather events kill thousands of people and cause billions of dollars in damage each year.
WWA scientists identified 157 extreme weather events as the most severe in 2025, meaning they met criteria such as causing more than 100 deaths, affecting more than half the territory's population or declaring a state of emergency. Of these, they carefully analyzed 22.
This included dangerous heat wavesThe researchers said some of the heat waves they studied in 2025 were 10 times more likely than a decade ago due to climate change.
“The heat waves we've seen this year are fairly common in our current climate, but they would be virtually impossible to occur without human-caused climate change,” Otto said. “It makes a huge difference.”
Meanwhile, the prolonged drought contributed to Forest fires engulfing Greece and Turkey. Heavy rains and flooding in Mexico killed dozens of people and left many missing. Super Typhoon Fung-wong hit the Philippinesforcing more than a million people to evacuate. Monsoon rains hit India with floods and landslides.
The WWA said increasingly frequent and severe extreme events threaten the ability of millions of people around the world to respond and adapt to these events with sufficient warning, time and resources, what scientists call the “adaptation limits.” The report points to Hurricane Melissa as an example. intensified so quickly that this has made forecasting and planning more difficult, and beat Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti so serious that small island states were unable to respond and cope with the enormous loss and damage.
United Nations climate talks this November in Brazil ended without any clear plan on climate change. transition away from fossil fuelsAnd while more money has been promised to help countries adapt to climate change, it will take them longer to do so.
Officials, scientists and analysts admitted that Warming Earth will miss 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit), although some say a reversal of this trend remains possible.
However, different countries have seen different levels of progress.
China rapid deployment of renewable energy sources including solar and wind power, but also continues to invest in coal. While increasingly frequent extreme weather has fueled calls for climate action across Europe, some countries say it limits economic growth. Meanwhile in the USA The Trump administration has led the nation away away from clean energy policies in favor of measures that support coal, oil and gas.
“The geopolitical weather is very cloudy this year, and many politicians are very clearly pursuing policies in the interests of the fossil fuel industry rather than in the interests of the people of their countries,” Otto said. “And we have a huge amount of misinformation that people have to deal with.”
Andrew Kruczkiewicz, a senior fellow at Columbia University's Climate School who was not involved in the WWA work, said some places are experiencing disasters they are not accustomed to, with extreme events increasing faster and becoming more complex. This requires earlier warnings and new approaches to response and recovery, he said.
“Globally, progress is being made,” he added, “but we must do more.”
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Alexa St. John is a climate reporter for The Associated Press. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Contact her at [email protected].
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